I just wanted to give some quick props to Sergio Bonachela for taking this absolutely beautiful sunset skyline picture of downtown Seattle, and even better, for letting me use it for my header image. He has an entire collection of amazing photographs that are definitely worth checking out.
You can find his Flickr page here.
In addition, I’d like to give myself props for taking this awesome picture of a confused yet jovial looking bear (look at the bottom of my right-side bar). If anyone can tell me where that bear can be found in the world I will send them some type of prize.
I was chatting with the one and only Scott Hanselman earlier today and he gave me the suggestion of hosting the sample demo used in my AJAX History series so readers could easily see right away how it works without having to download the code and run it (that can be more trouble than it’s worth).
Of course his advice was great, so I went ahead and setup a new domain (playground.lostintangent.com) and put up the quarterback rater app. You’ll notice the link to the live sample is on the landing page for the AJAX History series. From here on out I will be hosting the samples like this and publishing the link to them from their respective series pages.
I just wanted to briefly let everyone know that I’ve reorganized how I’m aggregating my training series. Previously on the right side navigation there was a link specifically for the ADO.NET Data Services series, but I’ve ripped that out and replaced it with a link to the overall Training Series page. This page aggregates all training series, which in turn aggregate all articles in their respective series. Also notice that I’m placing the series code on the series landing page rather than within each individual article. For example, if you look at the ASP.NET AJAX History series page you’ll notice the green box with the solution download. This will be a provision for all series moving forward. As a new article in posted in the series, the series solution will be updated to reflect the new article.
My goal is for the training series page to be a nice one stop shop for finding entire training series for specific features as well as be a view into what is coming up. Along with article links and code download I’m also going to post screencasts to individual series page as well. Basically any resource that I produce around a specific feature will be published to its training series page for easy consumption.
Any feedback you have please let me know.
Being new to Seattle, I’ve been anxious to find out what the local developer community is like. I got the chance to present at the Seattle Code Camp yesterday on the Entity Framework. There was a great turn out for the session, and I was really surprised by the awesome questions I was getting from folks in the crowd. The Seattle community seems really open-minded and excited to try new things, which is great for someone promoting new technology 
This area is really spoiled, because their code camps are littered with Microsoft speakers. My homeboy Drew Robbins gave a great session on IIS7, Phil Haack and Chris Tavares were representing MVC, and Adam Kinney was doing his thing with Silverlight. All in all it was a great day, and I’m really glad I went.
First off, I haven’t been lazy about posting this week, I just haven’t gotten an internet connection setup in my apartment yet, and blogging from an iPhone is less than ideal. The cable guy is supposedly coming on Friday, at which point I will both leap for joy and begin reguarly posting again. Seriously, try going a week without the internet and see what that does to you.
Anyways, so I’m now living in Seattle, specifically in a neighborhood called Belltown, which is where all the cool people live. I’m pretty sure there are more high-end hair salons, clothing boutiques and art galleries in this neighborhood than any other neighborhood in the US. I’m also pretty sure that everyone in this area owns a dog.
My apartment is located a few blocks from the Space Needle, which is pretty cool. I’m sure that novelty will wear off eventually but I have to admit I enjoy lying in bed at night watching the elevators go up and down, there is an odd serenity about it.
I appreciated the fact that before I moved up here everyone told me it only snows a couple times a year at most, then on my third day being here, it snows. Walking to and from the bus stop everyday is pretty much a freezing experience right now, so hopefully I’ll get used to that after a while (or maybe I’ll be a sissy forever).
Finally working on campus at Microsoft has been great. Working remote for a month was kind of a drag, and it’s nice to finally be able to chat in person with folks.
Keep it real, and stay tuned til the next episode…
